Issue #22

Apple famously doesn’t use focus groups. Why? Probably because focus groups tell you what you want to hear. Steve Jobs said “people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” Journalists were quick to say that he didn’t listen to customers and even Apple’s own team said that they didn’t test.

So what do they do instead? They’re bold. They cut features and iterate on what’s core to a product or service.

This issue is about how design can be bold and how widely-held notions can be flipped - I hope you enjoy it.

“The best advice I can give to UX designers is to make bold choices. Make choices for your users. Leave lots of stuff out, and don’t be afraid of reading an angry review demanding feature X to be added to your product ASAP.
You want your product to be user-friendly and pleasant to use? Make bold choices, and believe in them.” Really useful (against the trend) advice from Bram Bos. Delivering less and improving rapidly also help.

To understand user needs, it is useful to define their experiences. In people’s minds, services exist and take form in specific clusters. Once we understand those needs, we can backwards engineer solutions that meet them. Livework Intelligence, a service design company, share their insights on designing for experiences.

Most businesses know they should be doing user research, so what’s stopping them? Maybe they don’t know what to ask, how to conduct and what to do with that information. Amit Somani talks about how to get user research done. A key takeaway: Ask open-ended, non-leading questions.

Following the be bold theme, David Ismailov talks about how learning experiences can move us forward. “Finding the right balance between the familiar and the unique is part art and part science. Objective testing methods can help you find the right balance.”

With Shopify, Magento and other platforms, setting up a shop today is easy, but when the barrier to entry is so low, it means that the market can clutter very quickly. That’s where customer acquisition and retention comes in, leading to understanding their motives and needs. A really useful piece from Nic Haralambous, founder of Nic Harry.

Another Medium post! “I met this man, who was in his late 50s, accidentally while visiting San Francisco. It turned out that he is a super experienced eCommerce professional who owns now 19 online stores across the US and 6 stores in the UK.” Anthony Baksys, co-founder @Apter_io and @SearchNode shares the tips he learned from an un-named entrepreneur. TL:DR Be patient, listen to your customers and share a story.

While fashion house Burberry is feeling the pressure, House of Fraser shows that eCommerce is the driving force behind sales growth of 4.5% in its latest financial year. The relationship between online and bricks and mortar stores typifies this success.

I like this post for a number of reasons. Tim LeRoy brings back the magic of working with other businesses by dismissing the bad and working on the good. Acronyms be damned. Great businesses want to change the world. Reputation is everything. Great advice! If you like this, you should also check his post Known, Known and Be Known.

“We like seeing people, even if it’s inefficient.” That’s the findings from Carlo Ratti and Matthew Claudel in the Harvard Business Review. I personally think a mix is healthy. Hat tip to Tom Frame for this share!